John 7:14-52

14When the feast was half over, Jesus went up to the temple courts and began to teach.

15Then the Jewish leaders were astonished and said, “How does this man know so much when he has never had formal instruction?”

16So Jesus replied, “My teaching is not from me, but from the one who sent me.

17If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know about my teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority.

18The person who speaks on his own authority desires to receive honor for himself; the one who desires the honor of the one who sent him is a man of integrity, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

19Hasn’t Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law! Why do you want to kill me?”

20The crowd answered, “You’re possessed by a demon! Who is trying to kill you?”

21Jesus replied, “I performed one miracle and you are all amazed.

22However, because Moses gave you the practice of circumcision (not that it came from Moses, but from the forefathers), you circumcise a male child on the Sabbath.

23But if a male child is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?

24Do not judge according to external appearance, but judge with proper judgment.”

25Then some of the residents of Jerusalem began to say, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?

26Yet here he is, speaking publicly, and they are saying nothing to him. Do the rulers really know that this man is the Christ?

27But we know where this man comes from. Whenever the Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.”

28Then Jesus, while teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “You both know me and know where I come from! And I have not come on my own initiative, but the one who sent me is true. You do not know him,

29but I know him, because I have come from him and he sent me.”

30So then they tried to seize Jesus, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.

31Yet many of the crowd believed in him and said, “Whenever the Christ comes, he won’t perform more miraculous signs than this man did, will he?”

32The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about Jesus, so the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.

33Then Jesus said, “I will be with you for only a little while longer, and then I am going to the one who sent me.

34You will look for me but will not find me, and where I am you cannot come.”

35Then the Jewish leaders said to one another, “Where is he going to go that we cannot find him? He is not going to go to the Jewish people dispersed among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is he?

36What did he mean by saying, ‘You will look for me but will not find me, and where I am you cannot come’?”

37On the last day of the feast, the greatest day, Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and

38let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’”

39(Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive, for the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.)

40When they heard these words, some of the crowd began to say, “This really is the Prophet!”

41Others said, “This is the Christ!” But still others said, “No, for the Christ doesn’t come from Galilee, does he?

42Don’t the scriptures say that the Christ is a descendant of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”

43So there was a division in the crowd because of Jesus.

44Some of them were wanting to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

45Then the officers returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why didn’t you bring him back with you?”

46The officers replied, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

47Then the Pharisees answered, “You haven’t been deceived too, have you?

48None of the rulers or the Pharisees have believed in him, have they?

49But this rabble who do not know the law are accursed!”

50Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before and who was one of the rulers, said,

51“Our law doesn’t condemn a man unless it first hears from him and learns what he is doing, does it?”

52They replied, “You aren’t from Galilee too, are you? Investigate carefully and you will see that no prophet comes from Galilee!” [[